Madotsuki's Descent
by notscootexactly
Summary: A short diary detailing Madotsuki's descent. I appreciate any reviews that can be given.
1. The Nocturnal Butterfly

My balcony is the only place outside I'm comfortable in...seems i'm only awake during the nighttime anymore and even then I sleep most of that time away too. today I dreamt i was on that balcony and a butterfly, or maybe a moth, a flying bug made of something blue, like pure light or something...it landed on some of my fingers and fluttered and spread its wings. what was a Butterfly doing out at night? it was the same color as the light topping the hills around my apartment, the same color as the stars in the dim sky. the city was gone....besides the hilltop light and stars, black surrounded my balcony. not even the moon was showing its face to me. i havent seen the ground below in daylight for weeks, much less under my feet...the butterflies aren't as beautiful down there anyway. i like my balcony, and I love my Dreams. they're the only refuge I have now.


	2. Blackout

i dreamt again today, of a huge pyramid in a desert filled with curled plants, like ferns or something like that....the pyramid beckoned me upwards, and i walked for minutes, hours it seemed almost. A man was spinning in the sky, so so far away; did he jump? or was he flying? I couldn't tell. When i reached the top, there was a huge park. i went in, and it was dark, like night, but the lights weren't on. I walked for a while and found some people looking off the other edge...at some city, maybe where i lived. I can't tell anymore. nearby was a Brick building, and inside it was pitch black and the ground was spotted with white flowers, like that butterfly from the other night...I picked one and it smelled so beautiful. as i left the building, i wasn't on the pyramid anymore, but a room filled with cubes and a ghost wandering amongst them. the ghost wandered up to me, and I touched him where i thought his face was...but i disappeared, and he was still there. Then i woke up, and I was still in my bed.


	3. Neon

as the neon world overtook my eyes with some sort of supernatural variety of colors, i felt myself somewhat eased by the humming, tinkling music that seemed to fill my ears. i smiled a little...something rare even in my dreams. there were things around though...not like the people (?) who were looking over the cliff, but magnificent beings of light that flashed in so many different colors: disembodied heads, faces shaped like a knight's shield, rainbow blobs, some sort of beaked faces; all were wandering around a spectrum world. still, there was a presence, something making me feel very ill....as those figures danced about a black surface, i could pick out vaguely...phallic shapes, flashing in every color possible. i tried to ignore them, but gripped my knife tightly...just in case they wished to come near. soon i found another bird-like figure, this one taller than the rest; it seemed he was straight out of a mayan or incan painting. he approached me slowly, but i wasn't afraid; he made me into a being of light, just like the others. a warmness overcame me; but as he walked away, i returned to normal.


	4. Hell

i found a door into a room, its surface just as black as the neon world's. forming a path on the floor were purple and red tiles which made odd noises as i walked on them. i was afraid to go to the edges of this path; all i could see there was black, a vast expanse of nothing. i followed the road for a short while, taking sight of purple pyramids which dotted the waysides, alongside blood pooling on the ground as it dripped out of the sky from sources unseen. at the end of the path i found a simple spinning...thing. like a red cinderblock, spinning in circles and sliding slowly across the floor. i touched it and felt myself get sucked into another world.... when i came to, i was in a vast red maze. i walked for hours and hours, feeling myself becoming increasingly desperate as the realization dawned that there was no way out within sight....when i saw her.


	5. Toriningen

she was horrible. she had the body of a human, and wore normal clothes...but her head was an utterly disturbing mixture of a person's and a bird's. her eyes were bulging out of her head, spinning around in circles in opposing directions. she seemed to be looking everywhere at once. and they were on fire...her eyeballs burned with a rage, and yet her beak-like mouth was contorted into a truly nauseating grin. i knew innately that using my knife wasn't an option: i began to run, and she immediately gave chase. i ran and ran and ran, but the labyrinth never ended. eventually i met a dead end. she was upon me in seconds...it wasn't only her appearance that frightened me... the sheer vicious nature of her attack made my blood run cold in my veins. she didn't even stop when she saw i was trapped; there was no remorse. that same sneer was crossing her horrible mouth, and her stride wasn't broken one bit. i could smell her as she wrapped her arms around me, trapping me. i melted from reality and reappeared on a wooden pier in the middle of a huge body of water, completely alone. i barely had room to move around on the wooden platform. it was so dark...i could barely see light from somewhere reflecting off of the nearly motionless water. the emptiness and loneliness made me feel like i was back at home...and for a moment after i awoke, i felt no difference between the two worlds. only my flickering tv brought me back to reality.


	6. A White Desert

today i found myself in a world filled with simple blocks. it was incredibly simple, and yet extremely frightening. i wandered for a while before finding a hat and scarf that seemed to be on an invisible person. when i reached her, she teleported me to a high place on top of one of the blocks where there was a foreboding black gate. it seemed to be solid, but as i placed my hands on its face i felt myself sucked away. i found myself in a monochrome white desert where the landscape was covered with cacti that seemed to be out of a poorly-drawn sketch.

i wandered down what i thought was a road, passing only a single denizen whose head was so sickeningly disfigured that his head was severely enlarged, engorged with something disgusting. he was like something out of a demented dalí painting. the road passed through a tunnel under a white hill, and inside i found a girl clad in a schoolgirl's outfit.

her face was frozen, like she was in the middle of an anguished moan, her mouth constantly open as she stumbled over the bumpy ground towards me. it was so scary, i wanted her to stop...so i became a stoplight. i flipped my light from green to red, but she didn't stop....she just became slower. and mutilated. she sprouted a hand from her head, i could hear her skull snapping open as the fingers jutted out of her cranium. and she grew another set of arms out of her elbows, the new hands cocked at disgusting angles while their forearms hung limply...and a huge stream of tears erupted from her left eye, which had turned bright white; its iris and pupil had disappeared.

she approached me inexorably...she began to dance and filled my vision, her terrifying, gory figure spinning around in my eyes. before i knew it i had drawn my knife and stabbed her and she disappeared with a scream and a little bit of blood...it wasn't much. instantly the fear was gone. the path was clear. i came out the other side of the hill, and the end of the road was in sight in the bright white of the desert's sand. i let my knife out of my hands; it fell point-first into the ground and stuck straight up into the air as i crouched down and covered my face. my head was pounding, and i could hear sounds in the distance...or was it in my head? what is happening to me?? what is happening to my mind... what am i becoming?!


	7. Fade

i continued down the road for a long, long time, but i felt like i wasn't going anywhere. the road was moving under my feet, and the tunnel was fast becoming a dot in the distance, yet nothing appeared before me. i wandered off the path and onto the sandy ground of the desert, passing the monochrome cacti and stones dotting the landscape. the sky was white, almost blinding, but it wasn't hot...but i was getting tired anyway.

soon i found another of the dalí men standing outside of a small hill with another tunnel running through it. this road, however, simply came out of one mouth of the tunnel and reached around, reconnecting with the other end in an endless loop. i wandered into one end and came out the other. i began to look around desperately. where was i to go? there was no way out of this desert...i looked at the dalí, and he just stared at me, his huge nose jutting out towards me, his mouth half-open. he looked stupid. why was he staring at me? was it something on me? was he going to do something to me...? i stabbed him, right in the eye, relishing the feeling as the point of the blade penetrated his right socket and blood squirted out like i was juicing an overly ripe fruit. he screamed just as the five-armed girl did and collapsed to the ground, his bright-red blood a vibrant statement as it soaked into the white sand. the sun was bearing down on me...suddenly it was very hot. the tunnel looked so inviting...i went in one end but didn't come out the other.

inside i found a long road; the ground was still sandy and white, but the sky was as black as the darkest night. along the way i found huge arms and legs jutting out of the ground. they bled and twitched as i stabbed them, but nothing else. i reached the precipice of a huge cliff with a simple cube of a room hanging over the edge. i stepped inside and looked up...a window in the ceiling let me look up into the inky sky, and all i saw was a floating, severed head....the woman's face was frozen in a horrible grimace, as if her death was slow and painful. i could see in my mind her neck being sawed in half as she screamed and gurgled impotently for her life. i ran out and down the path and was back outside. i hate this...what did i do to deserve this? i'm sorry, dalí...

again the sun beat its rays upon my head, and suddenly the other tunnel entrance looked like an oasis. i entered it fearfully, and found only black. i walked blindly for a while before finding a lone girl, clad in the same uniform as the five-armed one. this girl, though, looked hateful, with an incredibly smug look on her face, as if she had shown another girl the worst she could do. she stared at me and smiled, her eyes half-closed. i want to stab her...i want to kill her. i approached her and swung at her with my knife, but she filled my vision with her face and disappeared. i looked around; she had reappeared a few feet behind me, her expression unchanged. i ran at her as she raised one hand to me, attempting to halt my advance. i swiped again, yelling like an animal at the top of my lungs. but again she was gone. i fell to my knees and wept....why, why so much hate?


	8. Shoal House

a snowy forest met my vision as i slept this morning; trees dotted the area, but mostly there was just deep snow covering the landscape from my feet all the way out to the horizon. i trudged for a little while before i reached a clearing with an igloo in the exact center. was i in alaska? i ducked inside the short opening in its front and found a tiny pond inside, breaking through the snow and ground to an underground lake. into it i leapt, expecting freezing cold but was instead met with a pleasant warmth.

i swam for a bit and surfaced in a beautiful world of ice, colored lightly purple by a strange-colored sun. everything was in shades of violet, pink, and sea green... i swam up to a skinny floe of ice and climbed on top of it, following the skinny path until i found a helium balloon tied to the ground. it was the same color as the water and bobbed in the light breeze. i took hold of its string, and it began to float through the air. the land was gliding slowly under my transport and me until it suddenly popped, dropping me into the shallow water. i sloshed around the warm water, dragging my feet through the pond until i found another balloon, this one pink. it, too, took flight as i grabbed its thin guide, and it eventually deposited me on a symmetrical island with a large cone-shaped, striped structure in the middle. it resembled a huge, strangely-shaped igloo...

I wandered inside it and found a room much like my own. There was a desk, a bookcase, a few posters with smiling cartoon elephants on them, a desk, lamp, and a nice comfy bed. In the middle of the space was a large rug and, kneeled on top of it, a girl about my age. She wore a green sweater and had bright blonde hair, tied back in a ponytail. She was quite pretty... I was a little jealous of her appearance, but she smiled at me warmly as she caught sight of me, and I felt myself smile right back at her. She looked so sad, her eyes a little droopy and bloodshot like she had been crying, but her inviting expression made me realize that she certainly wanted...or needed...me there. It was so lonely out here on this island; I wonder how long it had been since someone had visited?

I kneeled on the rug across from her, my hands placed daintily in my lap. We conversed silently, looking at each other and understanding innately what we both felt. The sun drifted through the sky, and it was becoming dark as we began to laugh at each other's presence. It was such a nice feeling, being loved just because I was keeping somebody company. I miss everyone...

She started to busy herself with something at her desk as I got up and wandered around the room, looking closely at the items scattered about. I found a lightswitch near her door.........but as I reached for it, i heard her emit a little noise behind me. i looked over my shoulder and there she was, begging me with her eyes to leave the light on.

i flipped it anyway.


	9. Integration

instead of getting darker, initially the room filled with light, like a lightning bolt had struck outside. it then turned dark, the moon being the only source of light. there was a terrible humming in my ears, like a scream, but horribly distorted. the posters morphed into scary, mutilated smiling faces, as did the rug, upon which a giant face had apeared. the worst though was the girl...she began to melt, her skin bubbling and bursting, filling with a black pus that soaked her clothes. her face turned as white as the snow...her eyes bled black...her mouth morphed into a smile that wasn't of a happy person but an insane one. she was frozen in the middle of the room and screamed, that muted scream, yelling, ringing in my ears. no, no, no no no 

i collapsed onto the floor, pushing myself with my legs up against the farthest wall. the scream didn't get quieter at all....it filled my ears with stories of burning flesh, melting, cracking bones, heads being torn from bodies. the screams of everybody who has ever been in pain echoed in the girl's walls. she was solid black now, her skin and muscle and bones melted into a bloody pool on the ground and getting soaked up somewhat by her large rug...but her face was so white, and her eyes were like holes into a pitch black abyss, and her mouth simply stretched and contorted into an even darker grin. it stared straight ahead, out the window, out to the darkness outside. i reached up on the wall behind and tried to turn the light back on with the switch...but nothing. i felt myself drawing my knife out of my skirt and holding it in front of me with both hands. i was trembling so much....

it sat stock still and only emitted that noise, like someone had recorded a blood-curdling scream on a record and jammed the needle into it as hard as they could upon playback. i picked myself back up onto my feet and edged closer, inch by inch...and still she didn't move. as i neared her, i lifted the knife above my head, still gripping it tight with both hands. she turned to face me....it was like gears grinding in a huge factory as she spun slowly. i could see her filling my vision. my nose filled with a horrible stench and i felt like i was going to throw up and the noise oh god the noissssseeeee

i swung as hard as i could down into the top of the creature but she simply swallowed my hands. her face melted again as her eyes merged with her mouth. she sucked in my arms my shoulders my body my feet my chest...my head.

i was in a black world and a shallow pool of pure, white water. the figure was next to me, its face even more disfigured, but it was completely still now. behind me in the distance was a huge black creature the size of a mountain, lifting narrow bands of a blood-red substance from holes in the ground. the stuff was thick, like cake batter...but so red i could have sworn he was ripping the blood out of millions of dead people. i walked in the pool...there was no end. every couple of feet the horrible creature that was formerly my friend appeared. she was taunting me. the light. where is the light? turn on the light please.

my tv flickered again, and i saw test bars through tears. still, even in waking life, the figure filled my vision. black and white. monochrome. no end. no light


	10. Elope

today i fell asleep in my room, and woke up in my room. only i didn't remember waking up...i was simply standing in the middle of my rug, staring at my bed; my room surrounded me in my dreams as well. the bed looked so inviting...i'm so sleepy all of the time. so i fell asleep again.

i awoke on a narrow but long staircase. surrounding it was an abyss, with long, narrow, spaghetti-like arms extending from its depths into the inky sky above. i wandered down and down and down until i reached a dark lobby. there was an elevator door on the nearby wall, but i ignored it in lieu of the dark hallway beckoning me forward. suddenly i was met with an intense heat, and flames filled the corridor ahead of me. i felt my skin melt off of my fingers as i reached to touch it, but it didn't hurt. not one bit.

i wandered back the way i came, and my skin grew back good as new. the elevator door was alluring; i pushed the "up" button, and it arrived instantly and took me to what looked like a subway station. when the doors open, i rode an escalator down to another lobby where a door stood wide open, flooding the area with sunlight. outside i was on the roof of a building; a black cat reclined on the precipice and stared out over the vast expanse of the city. for some reason a broom lay on the ground near the edge. i picked it up and straddled it like a horse as a witch's hat and clothing conjured themselves on my head and body. i was a witch.

the sky called to me. i could fly. the broom could make me fly, like that butterfly from my dreams! i could become a neon being and escape my apartment. i leapt over into the air, the broom still between my legs, and i took flight. the wind blew in my braids and rustled my hat, blowing my loose clothing behind me. it was warm, but the breeze was nice and cool. i felt my teeth shine in the bright sun as the city flowed below me like water; my stomach jostled as i performed flips and loop-de-loops, barrel rolls, immelmann turns...it was wonderful. suddenly the butterfly appeared before me as if out of thin air, up above me, near the bottom of the clouds. i flew up and up and reached out with one hand...the sun made my wings fail, though, and i slipped off and fell. the insect shrunk until it was nothing as the wind blew past me in a gale...the ground was nearer and nearer. a dread overtook me as i slammed into the ground....

i woke up on my rug. test bars on the television. i saw clouds outside my door, and rain pittered on the glass window.


	11. Striking Chords

numbers today: numbers on the ground, everywhere, random. walls covered in zipper-people...the floor was clear and underneath my feet was mostly black, but once in a while i could catch a glimpse of a map of the numbered area. a dull hum surrounded me, punctuated by something like a person pounding on random keys on a piano. it gave me a headache, and i wanted to find a way out...

a flashing red door covered in concentric, colorful diamonds was before me. i went inside and went down a narrow hallway, random numbers appearing under me, until i reached a room full of beds. i could see forms under their sheets, but no faces: they were all lying on their stomachs, their faces smothered in their pillows. one of the bird-women was there...but her eyes were bugging out, and when she saw me, she smiled and walked away. my hands wrapped around my knife...never know when i need it. she could go mad any second.

cabinets lined the bedroom wall. i opened them, and they each led to an abyss. the last one drew me in...and i was in a purple world filled to the brim with grimacing guillotines and mad bird-women. they chased after me, around and around. it was like i was running in circles. they grabbed me, and i knew immediately that they wanted my head. they grabbed me by my hair, by my neck...the guillotines clattered up and down, their teeth glistening with the blood of previous victims. a small pile of heads surrounded each of them. i felt my neck slide into the form-fitted hole, and i could hear the contraption bellow a laugh before it clanged down onto my neck. i fell face first into the violet dirt. i breathe my last breaths....good bye...

but the hum was back. the door returned to my vision and flashed. pianos and horrible chords. i rose and continued.


	12. Face Your God

the numbers shifted beneath my feet as i wandered, the map floating like a parallax under my feet. every single inch of the wall was covered with zippermen, sometimes one single figure, sometimes many of them attached themselves to each other in a chain, ended on one end by a single deformed leg, and ended on the other by a single arm. they all smiled exactly the same way: a triangular grin, their gaze focusing on me as i walked by. they went on and on, as far as i could see. no end to the wall, zippermen all around, their eyes boring into my head...

i wandered into an alcove and looked at the figures. they stared, identical expressions. i spun around slowly, my skirt trailing in circles through the air. the one behind me...it looked as if it was in pain. it called out to me silently, its face frozen in a terrible, toothy white grimace. something inside was calling to me...something inside giving it insurmountable grief. i fingered the handle of my knife...i knew what i had to do.

i drove the blade into its teeth, and it split apart into a bloody slit, opening just wide enough for me to force myself in. it was dark, not exactly pitch black. there was just enough light for me to see mayan figures dancing in my vision, leading me up a dim staircase. a railing lined the darkness, leading inexorably up. up i walked...

someone was polishing metal. a squeak found its way to my ear, repeated. i followed the source up and up...and i found him. a rainbow column, jutting straight out of the abyss on each side of the stairs. it...he had a triangular grin that matched those of the zippermen, his round, black eyes as blank as his surroundings. one round protuberance extended from his mass and rubbed the stairway's railing, polishing it to a shine. so much joy from such an inane action...and yet he made me feel uneasy in a very deep place inside of me...even in waking life i felt as if i'd seen him before. it was a hunch. i felt as if he'd been haunting me for months. i backed away from him, farther up the stairs, wielding my knife in front of my body to keep him away. but he stared straight ahead, simply quickening the pace of his rubbing. it was like i was exciting him even more...

a brown door stood at the top, and i opened it, hastening myself to get away from the creature. inside was black, blacker than the deepest abyss i've ever seen in waking life or in my dreams. i fell and fell, fear overtaking me as i felt myself close my eyes uselessly. static filled my hearing. i could see in my eyelids a face, a smile, distorted by lines moving across it in all directions. it grimaced at me triumphantly, and i knew it had taken me into its clutches. i tried to escape, i tried to open my eyes, but it flashed and flashed, locking me into itself. no escape. no way out. its eyes grew and grew, the noise increasing so that it was making me deaf. i gritted my teeth and tried to bear it, but it was all around me. i thrashed, i screamed, let me go! i screamed and yelled for help, but none came. i began hyperventilating...no, let go, no no no no 

my forehead struck something very hard, and at first i thought the face had collided with mine. it was my floor; i had rolled out of bed. my room seemed inviting for that instant...but then the ground was cold, the air was cold, even my bed looked cold. clouds flowed by outside, covering the sun. it was evening. no escape.


	13. Starfield

i fell asleep in my bed twice again, once in my waking life and once again in the dream world. the same staircase appeared, the same from that time when i was a witch... i wandered down the staircase as hands soared from the darkness below and grasped at nothing. the same elevator, the same fire....but this time, i could control it.

i remembered the snowy land, before i met the lonely girl...who melted into a monster. it began to snow inside, hard enough to douse the fire, opening the path for me. the flames had engulfed a large doorway which led into a dank basement room. inside were leaky pipes, boxes of who knows what...and a strange mouth monster that roamed between some support beams. it wasn't threatening at all: even at its tallest it only came up to the middle of my shins. but it smelt horribly of human waste, and looked it too. i wandered to the rear corner of this scented hellhole and found another door, rimmed with light. i opened it and was engulfed with white...

the walls seemed organic and molded from a white material, and a large eye hung on the wall, surveying its space. another door led into a larger room with a window gazing out onto a field of stars, flowing by at a very quick pace. a spaceship?...

this spaceship was strange though, as a long keyboard rested under the window. there at the piano stood a tall, sickly pale man with long black hair, clad in tight black clothing. he turned slowly, sensing my presence. he had no mouth, and his eyes reminded me of the demented birdwomen; they each pointed in completely opposite directions. but his demeanor was completely different...the black of his eyes contrasted with the white pallor of his skin and made him look exceedingly lonely and so sad. his eyes seemed full of tears.

i approached him slowly from the opposite side of the room; and even though he still looked upset, he seemed to warm to me, his eyes opening gradually as i took each step nearer. eventually i was at his side and noticed how tall he was, nearly a half-meter larger than me. the keys of the piano were at my eye level, and i struggled as i reached up and pressed a black key. a pipe organ rang out a note, and the man's eyes cleared of tears as he attempted to smile at me: his eyes took on a warm quality as the pipe's sound filled the room. i felt a grin make its way onto my face as well...

i continued wandering into the next room and found another window showing that speeding starscape. a bed laid in the middle of the wide space, a strangely-shaped one bordered on most of its circumference by a tall ridge extending naturally from the floor. it looked so inviting, and as i crawled into it i realized it was so comfortable. i wrapped myself in the blankets and watched the starlight flow by outside. the ship's lights seemed to dim as i fell asleep for a third time....


	14. Red Planet

whining alarms and klaxons sounded, and for a moment i thought my bedroom had moved to a submarine deep in the pacific...but then i remembered i was still dreaming, and i woke up in the piano man's spaceship. the lights had brightened again, but this time they were accompanied by a slowly pulsing red color. stars whizzed by outside the window much faster than before...were we crashing?

i rushed into the pilot's chamber, and i saw the piano man in a full panic, his strange eyes rolling like marbles inside their sockets. there were no instruments to direct the ship, nothing to control it...and he seemed to realize this. if he had had a mouth, i know that he would've been screaming at the top of his lungs.

in the window i saw a growing red shape, a rusty planet expanding in the viewport. canyons and dark streaks appeared as my visioned turned bright red. the piano man was running around in circles as the ship impacted and buried itself several feet into the ground; luckily we were both spared.

as the plight of our situation dawned on the man, he leaned over the huge keyboard to look outside and see where we were; his hands rested on multiple keys, and in response the organ belted out an incredibly sour chord that compelled me to cover my ears. eve though his eyes were pointed in opposing ways, i could still tell by his posture that he seemed to be focusing somewhere far in the distance, as if he was expecting something. he leaned back and stood straight, staring blankly out of the window. he didn't move...he was frozen.

i went back into the first chamber, but the door into which i had originally entered the ship had disappeared. instead a short staircase led downward, and at its bottom i could see the rust. daintily i stepped down to the planet's surface...

it was blazingly hot as the sun shone down. the sky was pink with dust, and a stiff gale blew my pigtails back behind me. i struggled through the environment toward a tall hill. was it an extinct volcano? i wandered upwards, the dust burning my eyes as i neared the summit. at the top i could see all around for miles. on the horizon i saw what the piano man had feared...flying saucers were floating slowly towards me. i looked around frantically for a way down from the hill, leading me to find a hole no larger than a dinner plate in the ground. i jumped feet first into it, and it sucked me in like water down a drain. i was on a dimly lit staircase, obviously formed by the hands of humans....or perhaps something else entirely.

i wandered down into a deep cave and found old machines, alien technology from a civilization long ago dispatched from the universe. they were warm and clattered softly in the dark. deeper i went, a dull blue light beckoning me. soon i found a huge creature standing stock still. it was like a huge deformed leg, nearly 4 meters tall. at the stump where it would have connected to the hip was a long, thin eye running lengthwise. thick tears ran from it in a stream and fell to the ground, pooling in a bright green puddle.


	15. Martial Felony

i wandered down into a deep cave and found old machines, alien technology from a civilization long ago dispatched from the universe. they were warm to my touch and clattered softly in the dark. deeper i went, a dull blue light beckoning me. soon i found a huge creature standing stock still. it was like a huge deformed leg, nearly 4 meters tall. at the stump where it would have connected to the hip was a long, thin eye running lengthwise. thick tears ran from it in a stream and fell to the ground, pooling in a bright green puddle.

the quiet clattering of the machines almost sounded like a piano playing a sorrowful tune, a short section of an ascending scale. it repeated every so often as the noise from the various mechanisms fell into the correct timing, the scale sometimes being accentuated by the drip of the creature's tears striking the puddle. i approached the towering thing and touched its foot, eliciting a nearly silent cry that sounded almost exactly like another piano. it simply continued weeping and weeping. i could feel that it had been here for a very long time, standing in the dark as the nearby machinery fulfilled their purpose for untold millennia.

i poked it with a little more force, trying to get its attention. nothing. i pinched its skin, gripped it, tore at it with my nails. drip drip drip... the knife appeared in my right hand again, ordered me to poke the creature...so i did. i prodded it with the point of the blade and noticed that i had drawn a small stream of blood from the top of its foot. it was like a statue still...i started to get a little mad. how could something not feel itself getting poked with a knife? didn't it want to protect itself? i moved to its heel and drove the knife in deeper, a short cut into its flesh. red flowed out down to the floor, but it didn't move, not even a twitch. how, how could it let itself get killed? rage was building in me as i raised the knife above my head and shoved it deep into the top of the creature's foot, dragging it down towards its toes in a long, deep slice. blood spewed out of the cut as i neatly slashed its bottom half in two. finally a reaction as the creature nearly collapsed on top of me in a heap. no, no mercy for it...none!


	16. No Escape

i wasn't appeased: as it lay lifeless on the ground, i stabbed it repeatedly, all over its body, drawing the knife shallowly across its shaft at times and at other times shoving it deeply down to its handle into its skin, muscle, bone, and nerves. still it weeped, not from pain but from the abandonment it had felt for years and years. a new pool of tears was forming as the creature began to twitch occasionally. i relished my bloodlust as it finally tried to reel in pain from the deep long slices i was taking out of its leg. i gnashed my teeth, groaned with primordial fury as i stabbed it over and over, a huge pool of blood spreading onto the floor, dwarfing and eventually swallowing the pool of tears...until it stopped moving. yet still the tears flowed. it now knew my pain. it did what i did: it made itself defenseless. it let itself die. it let this happen. there was no escape, for it or me. my knife clattered to the ground as i let it slip from my hands.

i felt warm tears rush out of my own eyes, the realization dawning on me. this...thing.... i turned and made my way silently to the grey staircase, the clattering of the ancient machines drowning my thoughts somewhat. as i emerged onto the planet's surface again, though, a harsh wind began to blow...a windstorm was coming. i found myself rushing back to the piano man's ship, climbing the ramp back into the white sphere. silence fell over me again; a red gale blew outside the ship's porthole, thrusting itself uselessly onto the vessel.

i found the piano man exactly as i had left him, staring out into the planet's horizon, his strange eyes taking in the once-yellow sky now becoming a bright pink as the atmosphere stirred up tons of dust. i stood behind him, my head bowed as tears ran along my cheeks and made salty trails. i wept and wept...oddly enough though, the emotions from my fit of rage didn't abate with time. in fact, with each passing moment i felt so much angrier. i was so impotent...what could i do? the damage had been done. i started to wail loudly; the echoes hurt my ears.

i could see his head perk up as i began to express myself openly for the first time...unfortunately, it was within my dream. he turned around and looked over his shoulder at me, and immediately his face turned to one of sadness and sympathy. i could see through my tears as he stretched his arms out, inviting me in, and as i threw myself into him and cried into the black fabric of his clothing, he wrapped his arms about my body. it was warm, comforting. but still i knew we were stuck here forever, just the two of us. no escape. for hours it seemed i cried and cried...and my pillow was stained with my tears when i woke.


	17. Outbreak

i've been awake for three days now, no sleep for more than 72 hours. i have a pounding headache...my eyes feel like they weigh thousands of kilograms....but it's better than what my mind presents to me while i'm sleeping. here it's stable. nothing unusual. my tv antenna is broken so all i ever get is static...but once in a while i can see color test bars. it's always late at night.

sometimes i stare at the door to my apartment and wonder if i should go outside. i'll stumble over to it and grip the handle, but then i'll lose my nerve and my head will start pounding and i'll shake my head to get rid of the pain and fall down in the process. so tired...

i can see the sun once in a while when it shines through the big windows on my balcony door. the city is ugly during the day though...so brown and depressing. people whittling away their lives doing nothing, hurting each other. it's much prettier at night when there are less people out and the lights shine. it rained one of these nights, and through my window i could see neon through raindrops. warm. it made me smile for a second...but then i remembered:

no escape.

i can't leave my apartment. i haven't stepped foot on my balcony in days. i haven't breathed fresh air...i haven't smelled the city...i haven't even seen one other human being in weeks. months. they'll just end up hurting me. they will fail as people. so i wallow in front of my tv, or sleep the days and nights away in bed. no escape.

it's morning now. the sun is rising slowly, a new dawn. a new day for people to fulfill their pointless lives, doing whatever they can to step on one another in pursuit of self-gratification. the wind blows and trees sway. there's a broom on my balcony, laying on the ground near the edge. maybe i should go outside...

i'll put the broom between my legs and just fly. i know the butterfly's not actually out there...but i wish it was. it's morning, so maybe it would just be heading to its hovel for the day, ready to sleep the sunshine away like i do. the most beautiful thing i've ever seen is a figment of my imagination. it floats, ethereal, vanishing at the opening of a sleeping eye. yet even in waking life i see it...i can feel its wings pushing the air, i can see its luminous blue color in the night. i want to fly too. even my dreams are better than this existence...

i will fly. i'm going to do it! the sky is calling to me. i can fly. the broom can make me fly, like that butterfly from my dreams! i can become a neon being and escape my apartment! escape, sweet freedom, a break-out. over the edge of my balcony i'll go, with a broom in my hand and a smile on my face.

i will dream forever.


End file.
